Aiken County Public Schools and local law enforcement are urging students to be aware of cyberbullying and to know the consequences of taking part in any form of bullying and/or making threats online. The school district’s bullying policy defines harassment, intimidation or bullying as a gesture, electronic communication or a written, verbal, physical or sexual act reasonably perceived to have the effect of either of the following: Harming a student physically or emotionally or damaging a student’s property, or placing a student in reasonable fear of personal harm or property damage. Insulting or demeaning a student or group of students in such a manner as to cause substantial disruption in or substantial interference with the orderly operation of the school. Captain Maryann Burgess, with the Aiken Department of Public Safety, said the online threats within Aiken County schools has been a common issue but emphasized its a common issue nationwide….
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Victims of revenge porn are being asked to share their stories with North Yorkshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, as part of a campaign to close a ‘legal loophole’ in order to help protect their identities. Julia Mulligan has today launched an anonymous survey to gather evidence and bolster her efforts to see Image Based Sexual Abuse, or ‘Revenge Porn’, reclassified from a communications offence to a sexual offence. One in three allegations since 2015 are believed to have been withdrawn, according to a Freedom of Information requests noted by the NYPCC. It is believed this is often due to the lack of anonymity under the current classification of victim’s identities, and the distress this causes. Mrs Mulligan said: “The law on revenge porn is fundamentally flawed. It needs to change and this survey will provide me with more evidence in my campaign to ensure the legal loophole is closed…
Pressure is mounting on the government to tighten the laws around revenge porn, which could result in the most serious culprits jailed for more than two years and put on the sex offenders register. Senior Conservative MP Maria Miller is seeking to amend the new upskirting bill to cover the nonconsensual sharing of explicit images and videos online, and other image-based crimes that “make women’s lives hell”. Revenge porn was made a criminal offence in 2015 and carries a sentence of up to two years in prison, but the former cabinet minister wants to make it a specific sexual offence that would offer anonymity to victims and longer sentences. It comes as the issue hit the headlines when Zara McDermott, a former government adviser, and Laura Anderson, an air stewardess, reportedly had intimate images and videos shared online while appearing in Love Island, the popular reality TV show. Ms Miller, who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, told The Independent that the law needed to change as many people regarded revenge porn as “stupid…
JEFFERSON CITY — A bill that criminalizes sharing private sexual images without consent is one vote away from going to Gov. Eric Greitens’ desk. The Senate unanimously passed a House revenge porn bill with a vote of 33-0. Sen. Gary Romine, R- Farmington, who brought the bill to the Senate, said the legislation has been in the works for years and is not a reaction to any high-profile cases. Romine did not specifically mention the governor, but he and several lawmakers alluded to the governor’s impending court case. Greitens has been charged with a felony for allegedly taking and transmitting a photo of a seminude woman without her permission before he was elected. He denies the allegation. A House committee is also investigating the report. “This has not been a knee-jerk reaction,” Romine said. Proposals to enact similar legislation have “been around quite some time.” The Senate’s version makes…
JEFFERSON CITY • Missouri lawmakers on Thursday gave final approval to legislation which would allow 17-year-old defendants to be tried as juveniles in most cases. Pending a signature from Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, Missouri would join more than 40 other states that have raised to 18 the age for which defendants can be tried as adults. The change was among several criminal justice reforms legislators gave final approval to on Thursday as they cranked into high gear in advance of the closing week of the state’s annual legislative session. As part of the juvenile justice legislation, lawmakers also approved boosting criminal penalties for those who patronize prostitution of a minor. Minors tried for prostitution would also be able to use evidence that they were coerced into performing sex acts as a defense in court. Lawmakers also signed off on a measure that makes it a felony to intentionally…
Copyright by WKBN - All rights reserved GREENVILLE, Pa. (WKBN) - A man from Greenville, Pa. was arrested after police say he sent a nude picture of a woman to her current boyfriend. The incident happened April 10 in Grove City. Charges of unlawful dissemination of intimate material were filed May 7 against 29-year-old David McCarl. Relatively new legislation, commonly known as “revenge porn law,” bans the dissemination of intimate images and other sexual material with the intent to harass, annoy or alarm a current or former sexual intimate partner. Bond was set in the case at $15,000. McCarl is due back in court July 3. Source link
A post-graduate researcher warns revenge porn offenders could be slipping through through the cracks. Tess Upperton, who wrote her honours dissertation on criminalising revenge porn, is calling for new legislation to specifically target the increasing problem. Revenge porn is the common term for the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, which currently falls under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. Charges and convictions under the Harmful Digital Communications Act have more than doubled each year since it was introduced in July 2015. Netsafe CEO Martin Cocker, the Approved Agency for the Act, said it was reasonable to expect revenge porn court cases to continue increasing. Ms Upperton said there’s been “a bit of complacency” since the Harmful Digital Communications Act was passed in 2015. “The law here might start looking a little bit dated and not quite up to scratch in terms of how we view and treat victims.” Ms Upperton…
A Texas appeals court last week ruled that the US state’s Relationship Privacy Act, which prohibits the disclosure or promotion of intimate images without the consent of those depicted, is unconstitutional. Enacted in 2015, the Texas law was intended as a way to stop what’s known as revenge porn, in which a person discloses intimate sexual images, online or otherwise, to cause harm and embarrassment to another person. The law covered images to those taken under circumstances when the depicted person had a reasonable expectation that the material would remain private. It’s one of 38 state laws that have been enacted in the US to combat revenge porn, also referred to as nonconsensual distribution of pornographic images because the perpetrator’s motivation – revenge or otherwise – wouldn’t mitigate the act. In its consideration of an appeal by defendant Jordan Bartlett Jones, accused in a civil complaint last year of…